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Ann Thorac Surg 1998;65:1415-1419
© 1998 The Society of Thoracic Surgeons
a Section of Thoracic Surgery, Department of Surgery, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA
Accepted for publication November 13, 1997.
Address reprint requests to Dr Salerno, Section of Thoracic Surgery, Department of Surgery, Box 207 UMHC, 420 Delaware St. SE, Minneapolis, MN 55455
e-mail: (saler002{at}maroon.tc.umn.edu)
| Abstract |
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Methods. We retrospectively reviewed the surgical management of IPA in 13 immunocompromised patients at our institution. Twelve patients underwent perioperative bone marrow transplantation (4 autologous, 8 allogenic). All 13 patients received antifungal therapy. Eleven patients were neutropenic at the time of operation.
Results. The mean interval from diagnosis of aspergillosis to operation was 42 days (range, 3 to 135 days). Eighteen operations were performed on the 13 patients. Seven patients had resections from multiple pulmonary sites, whereas 6 had a single lesion resected. The average lesion resected was 3.7 cm in greatest diameter (range, 1 to 9 cm). After a mean follow-up of 21 months (range, 0 to 9 years), 3 patients (23%) are alive with no evidence of aspergillosis, 6 patients (46%) died without evidence of aspergillosis, and 4 patients (31%) died secondary to aspergillus infection. All 4 patients who died of aspergillus infection received an allogenic bone marrow transplantation. Two patients with direct extrapulmonic extension of IPA at time of operation died of recurrent aspergillus infections. Three of 4 patients who died of aspergillus infection had an absolute neutrophil count less than 1,300 cells/µL at time of operation. The mean absolute neutrophil count of the patients who cleared the aspergillus infection was 5,538 cells/µL. The mean survival of allogenic bone marrow transplant recipients was 5.2 months, and for recipients of autografts was 51.4 months.
Conclusions. In this series, surgical resection of IPA cleared the aspergillus infection in 69% of the patients. Neutropenia, extrapulmonic extension of IPA, and allogenic bone marrow transplantation may predict a worse prognosis. Surgical resection of IPA in immunocompromised patients is an effective form of therapy in a properly selected patient population.
| Introduction |
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Medical therapy for IPA in immunocompromised patients is often associated with poor outcomes. Denning [4] reported that BMT patients with IPA had only a 5% to 10% response rate to medical therapy alone (amphotericin B). In addition to the poor prognosis, there is also a substantial risk of reactivation during subsequent drug-induced granulocytopenia [5]. Recently several groups have advocated early surgical therapy for immunocompromised patients with IPA [58]. Surgical intervention potentially reduces the risk of hemorrhage, may achieve local control of the infection, and diminishes the risk of reactivation. This report details our experience with surgical resection of IPA in 13 immunocompromised patients.
| Patients and methods |
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| Results |
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Twelve of the 13 patients survived hospitalization. The only perioperative death occurred in the patient who preoperatively had aspergillus identified in the pleural fluid. Subsequently, this patient had an empyema and died despite further surgical debridement. One patients surgery was complicated by a postoperative hemothorax, which was successfully treated with thoracostomy tube drainage. There were no other surgical complications. Four patients died secondary to aspergillus infection an average of 79 days after resection (range, 2 to 180 days). Three patients are alive with a mean survival of 30 months (range, 3 to 84 months). Six patients died of their primary hematologic disease with mean survival of 24 months (range, 1 to 108 months). These patients had no evidence of aspergillus infection at time of death.
All four deaths caused by aspergillus infection occurred in patients who received an allogenic BMT. Three of these 4 patients had an absolute neutrophil count less than 1,300 cells/µL at time of the operation. The mean absolute neutrophil count of the patients who cleared the aspergillus infection was 5,538 cells/µL. Both patients who had direct extrapulmonic extension of the aspergillus infection eventually died secondary to the fungus. Two of the 6 patients who had their IPA resected before BMT died of a recurrence of the disease.
| Comment |
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The risk of developing IPA progressively increases with the duration of neutropenia. Gerson and coworkers [1] reported a 70% incidence after 34 days of granulocytopenia. The degree and duration of granulocytopenia appears to be an important prognostic factor in IPA. Albeda and associates [10] reported the mortality to be essentially 100% without normalization of the granulocyte count and approximately 40% with normalization. In immunocompetent individuals pulmonary macrophages consume inhaled aspergillus spores, and neutrophils destroy the hyphae that escape the macrophages. With absence or malfunction of these cell types, aspergillus can proliferate freely [11, 12].
The clinical presentation of IPA is varied. Patients may present with a persistent fever, dyspnea, or nonproductive cough. Although not seen in our series, hemoptysis is an important cause of morbidity and mortality in patients with IPA [2]. In these patients, hemoptysis is often massive and the first episode can be fatal [2, 13]. Early diagnosis and treatment of IPA is crucial. The diagnosis of IPA is difficult without histologic identification of the organism. Bronchoalveolar lavage has been reported to be approximately 20% successful in diagnosing IPA [3, 14]. Chest roentgenographic findings resemble that of an aspergilloma, displaying the air crescent sign, as shown in Figure 1. Computed tomographic scans of early lesions may show segmental infarcts before the lesion progresses to a masslike infiltrate with a surrounding halo of low attenuation, the "halo sign," as seen in Figure 2 [1517]. However, the gold standard for diagnosis still remains histologic evaluation of the lung specimen [9].
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There have been no clinical trials comparing the efficacy of surgical therapy with medical therapy for the treatment of IPA. Recently multiple groups have reported their experience with surgical resection of IPA in immunocompromised patients [57, 9, 18, 24]. Robinson and colleagues [6] reported a 64% cure rate with early surgical therapy in 14 patients with hematologic malignancies. Lupinetti and associates [18] reported surgical cures in 3 of 6 pediatric BMT patients with IPA. Young and coinvestigators [7] reported 100% hospital survival in 8 patients with hematologic malignancies who underwent pulmonary resection for IPA. Four of the 8 patients in the latter series underwent BMT for acute leukemia. Moreau and coworkers [5] reported 6 patients with IPA diagnosed during chemotherapy-induced aplasia. All 6 patients underwent a lobectomy, despite lesion size, after hematologic recovery. No patient in this series had reactivation of IPA during subsequent chemotherapy. All patients with additional neutropenias after operation received prophylactic amphotericin B during the neutropenia [5]. Wong and associates [9] reported a series of 16 patients with neutropenia (14 chemotherapy-induced, 2 BMT) who underwent pulmonary resection for IPA. No patients in this series died of recurrent aspergillosis [9]. McWhinney and colleagues [24] reported 16 cases of IPA in 446 BMT patients. Six of these 16 patients underwent surgical resection as part of their treatment for IPA, and none of these patients developed a recurrent infection [24].
Our data are consistent with the previously published reports. Surgical resection of the IPA focus, in conjunction with appropriate antifungal therapy, cleared the infection in 69% of our patients. All of these patients acquired IPA during a period of neutropenia associated with their underlying hematologic disease. Peripheral lesions were easily removed by wedge resection, whereas larger or more central lesions were removed by lobectomy. For example, the peripheral lesion depicted in Figures 1 and 2 was resected with a wedge resection. Patients with multiple lesions in close proximity within the same lobe also underwent lobectomy. We believe that in most cases wedge excision should represent adequate surgical therapy, recognizing that, similar to wedge resections of nonsmall cell lung cancer, residual microscopic fungal elements may be left behind in the lymphatics or lung parenchyma. The role of surgery in this disease is not to eradicate all disease but instead to resect lesions, which because of diminished host defenses cannot be eradicated and can serve as a continued source of infection.
Only 2 patients had a blood loss large enough to warrant a transfusion, and both of these patients had multiple foci of IPA resected. The duration of chest tube drainage (mean, 4 days) was similar to that reported by other authors [9]. Twelve of the 13 patients were discharged from the hospital. Of the four aspergillus-related deaths in our series, 3 of 4 patients had an absolute neutrophil count less than 1,300 cells/µL at the time of operation and 2 of these patients had an absolute neutrophil count less than 500 cells/µL at the time of operation. Two of the 4 deaths occurred in patients with extrapulmonic extension at the time of operation (pleural fluid and chest wall). All four deaths occurred in patients who underwent allogenic transplantation. Two of the 5 patients who had an IPA resection before BMT did have a reactivation during subsequent periods of neutropenia. Six patients had multiple sites of IPA resected at the time of operation and 3 patients required multiple operations to control their infection. We did not find a significant correlation between the type or number of resections and patient outcome.
Presently it is not clear what is the most effective strategy for treating IPA in immunocompromised patients. Given the extremely high mortality rate associated with medical therapy alone, we advocate an aggressive surgical approach as described in previous reports [57, 9, 18, 21, 24, 25]. As shown in our series surgical resection of IPA can be performed safely. All patients should be treated with antifungal agents before resection and during any subsequent periods of neutropenia. The dose and duration of therapy should be individualized based on the extent of disease and severity of neutropenia. If possible, operations should be performed when the patient is not neutropenic. The surgical resection should include all foci of IPA. Resection of IPA in preparation for BMT can be performed safely but may be associated with recurrence during subsequent episodes of neutropenia. The exact timing for a pre-BMT resection cannot be determined from our data; however other authors have suggested that 2 months before BMT may be an appropriate time [18, 24]. The consideration for the timing of BMT in these patients is a multifactorial decision that should take into account the patients host defenses and clinical need for a transplant.
In conclusion, we found that IPA in immunocompromised patients, when anatomically favorable, can be safely resected even with thrombocytopenia. Factors that appear to correlate with a poor outcome include (1) allogenic BMT, (2) neutropenia at the time of operation, and (3) extrapulmonic spread of IPA to the chest wall or pleural fluid. Finally, preemptive resection of IPA in patients who will become neutropenic secondary to subsequent immunosuppression may be of benefit.
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